Friday, October 9, 2015

Stop Saying “I Could Never Do That”

From the window of the bus I see a woman walking alongside
the road bent under a bundle of sticks, her head lowered and her shoes split
and cracked. A lifetime of sun and hard work lines her face and for
a split second it pops into my head: “I could never do that.”

I think of the billion-plus people who still live without
electricity, plumbing, or safe and secure housing and with a pang my first
thought is still this – “I could never live like that.”

I know what I mean by this, and it comes from admiration – “They
are strong,” I want to say, but what I am actually saying is “They are fundamentally
different from me.”

Here is the truth: some people are not born more capable of
withstanding injustices. A person born in the slums is not less hungry, a
person carving their living out of a mountain is not less exhausted at the end of
the day. A woman in the Democratic Republic of Congo is just as emotionally and
physically devastated after a brutal rape. A mother in San Pedro Sula, Honduras
is just as torn apart when her son is shot in the streets as my mother would
be.

Things are not less heart-wrenching because they are common.
Things are not easier to manage because they are statistically likely. I think
this is what we forget – that as humans we feel pain and sorrow, anxiety and
loneliness, fear and hopelessness regardless of our nationality or
socioeconomic state.

The oppressed and impoverished in this world are not
superhuman, nor are they gifted with a superhuman capacity to deal with hunger
or disappointment.

Truer thoughts cut closer to our own position as observers,
the advantages that place me on the bus and the woman on the roadside:

“It must be difficult to do that.”

“I am not accustomed to doing that.”

“Because of the privileges I was born with, I will never
have to do that.”

This is what I think. If I had to do the impossible, to work
three jobs just to make it as a single mother, to endure thirty
lashes as bonded slave, or to walk three hundred miles to get medicine for my
baby, I would do it, because I would have to do it.

I have lived a soft and sheltered life. I can carry less
weight, both physically and metaphorically, than those who have spent their
whole lives tested. One gets better at bearing weariness, I imagine, with
practice.

But that is not what this idea is about. It’s easy to think
about the world in terms of “haves” and “have-nots,” or worse, in terms of
those who “can” bear the burdens of oppression and those who “can’t”, when that
distinction is actually meaningless.

When I see the woman walking alongside the road, really
see her, a truer thought comes to my mind. “I never want to do that,” I think,
then, “She probably does not want to do that either.”

This thought is the beginning of empathy, the beginning of
activism, and the nagging pull of true responsibility.

Thanks to Gary
Haugen’s book Locust Effect for
planting the seeds of these thoughts.

2 comments:

Katie, I am 'enjoying' your writings. Challenged, at times. Loving seeing through your eyes. I know what we saw & felt in Ethiopia. Lots of similar thoughts, feelings, ideas. Loving living with the people, but love knowing - " this is not my life,my forever". So many thoughts & issues to think about & work either upon, through, at least give thought to. Blessings be yours as you work & live - learning what God has for you. Keep wrestling through, learning & loving - being frustrated - being stretched - being broken but being safely in His arms. May you continue to grow & be used - to His glory & honor.